My mother is very big on doing things as a family, which I am grateful for. The weekend before my brother, Taylor, went back to Reno for his third year of college we did a lot of activities together. Some of the time was spent bowling, watching Star Wars, and playing board games, but I wanted to focus on this new activity we all tried. If you haven’t heard of people talking about axe throwing yet, then you probably will soon. Axe Monkeys is the go to place in Las Vegas when giving this sport a try. I tried searching for other places, but this one came up time and time again and with five out of five stars on Yelp why would you want to go anywhere else.

You pay by the hour – $25 a person (10% off if you show your Nevada ID 0r 20% off if you check in on Yelp). Groupon has an offer, but if you can get the local or Yelp discount then it is cheaper to skip the coupon. They have other weapons, like knives, ninja stars, and batarangs (like what Batman uses) you can add on for $10. They also have little pinata boxes, which you hang on your target and try to break it open with an axe. They have prizes inside from water bottles to tickets to a show. We decided to add on some batarangs. One of the employees set us up with some wooden targets and showed us all the different ways to throw the axes (two-handed overhand, one-handed overhand, and underhand). After watching us for a couple throws and giving us some pointers, the worker left us to do our own thing and fend for ourselves (the axes don’t seem extremely sharp but they could definitely do some damage). My mom was not paying attention and almost scalped me with one throw.

The axes were pretty heavy and while I was hoping axe throwing may be my hidden talent, it was not that easy. Thankfully once we made a few stick to the target, it was easier to continue. Once I got done overhand I would work on my underhand, which to me was the hardest. I even made a couple bulls-eyes with my non-dominant hand after some really ugly throws. Axes were flying over and under the targets and sometimes even back behind us, but it was a great time. We took a break from the axes to throw the batarangs, which my mom and I were better at than the axes. They were so much lighter and had more sharp points to stick into the target. To finish up our hour we switched back to a couple more axe throws. I think an hour was plenty of time. It was dead when we went on a Saturday afternoon, so they didn’t chase us out right after an hour but our arms were starting to get sore so we called it a day. It isn’t something I would do on a regular basis, especially since the place isn’t on my side out of town, but I would definitely recommend checking it out once.

They do bachelor and bachelorette parties and even divorce parties they were advertising. They seem to do a lot of promotions and try to keep things interesting. They described how to play numerous axe throwing games to have some friendly competition. There were bottles you could pay to break and computer screens to shatter. They even have a “rage room” where you pay to smash a bunch of items in this room with a sledgehammer, golf club, or baseball bat. It’s a different idea that’s for sure.